The Beauty of Loulan and the Tattooed
Mummies of the Tarim Basin
Loulan was discovered in 1980, but it was 3800 years ago that she died on the trade route known as the Silk Road.
The natural dryness and salty soil preserved her and over two hundred other mummies, individuals who had lived in
several closely located settlements along the trade route. The mummy has been called the Loulan Beauty because
of her amazingly preserved stately facial features that have remained quite beautiful even in death.
Unfortunately, the region where she and the others were found is politically unstable and the discovery of the
mummies in the Tarim Basin in China was seen as a possible instigating factor for unrest. The Chinese government
has been reluctant to allow full access to the mummies because of their racial identity. The Tarim mummies are
Caucasian and this fact has given credence to the claims of the local peoples, the Uyghur, who look more European
than Asian that they are the descendants of the original inhabitants of the area and not later arrivals, as Chinese
history claims.
Victor Mair, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was instrumental in getting access to these mummies. He
and Paolo Francalacci, a geneticist, were finally able to obtain some genetic samples in 1993. Their findings
revealed that the mummies are indeed European but they probably migrated from the Siberian region and are
unrelated to the Uyghur. The Chinese government did allow further testing in 2007 and 2009 and the finding
supported the Siberian connection as well as suggesting the mixing of people from Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley,
Europe and other unknown sources. It is unfortunate that the Beauty and the others are at the centre of this
controversy because it has distracted somewhat from the fact that there were Europeans in China at least a
thousand years before conventional history has Caucasians in this area of the world.
Mainstream historians have always had this strange concept that early people were not world travellers when in fact
most evidence points to just the opposite. We are led to believe that many cultures lived in isolation and that the
world was not truly explored until the last five hundred years.
The Beauty of Loulan’s people are clearly of Caucasian descent and their grave goods suggest that they were
probably merchants of textiles and perhaps leather goods. They were buried with many clothing items including one
man who was buried with ten hats, all of different styles. The settlements along the Silk Road might very well have
been meeting points where merchants from the west traded their goods for goods from the east. Having multicultural
merchants would certainly have helped facilitate communication between the traders. Pliny the Elder described the
traders from this area as tall with flaxen hair and blue eyes. He also described their language as ‘uncouth noise’.
Loulan herself lived to be about 40 to 45 and she probably died from lung disease caused by environmental pollution
from open fires and the gritty sand in the air. She was buried in well-made woven clothing and some of the other
mummies are actually wearing plaid patterned loomed cloth. Many of the mummies are tattooed, perhaps even most
of them, but the descriptions of the individuals often do not mention the tattoos, or refer to them as an unimportant
curiosity. However, I believe the tattoos represent an artistic and cultural link with people all across Eurasia and
even Western Europe. The tattoos appear to have been done in the manner of the Scythians, Thracians and the
Pazyryk, where the design is achieved by the puncture technique not the sewing technique. The puncture method
results in darker and larger fields of colour and is much more like modern tattooing.
One of the female mummies has crescent moons and ovals tattooed on her face. The moon designs are suggestive
of Goddess worship in many cultures and the presence of the tattoos on her face tells me, a tattoo artist, that
whatever the designs meant they were very important to her since she chose to display them where she could not
hide them; they also immediately identified her to others. She also had heavy tattooing on her hands which may be
symbolic or simply decorative as hand tattoos often are. Interestingly, a male mummy from the area, known as the
Chrechen Man has sun tattoos on his temples, the sun often represents the male God so it is possible that these two
individuals functioned in some sort of religious or shamanistic role.
I believe a more detailed recording of the tattoos, their designs and the method by which they were done could
reveal a great deal about the people, their beliefs and their connections both culturally and genetically with other
groups all across Asia and Europe. Tattoos should not be ignored as if they are simply a decoration. A tattoo
becomes the living flesh. When an ancient person chose to be tattooed, they were choosing to be changed,
transformed, and brought closer to their deities. A person, either modern or ancient, intends to carry their tattoo to the
next world with them; in other words, it is a big decision not to be made lightly, and a commitment to quite a bit of
pain. In ancient societies, the magic, prestige and power associated with a tattoo would have been an integral facet
of the culture and an important aspect of their lives.
The Tarim mummies are ‘living ‘ proof that 4,000 years ago people travelled over vast distances, interacted, interbred
and spread their cultural practices. The art of tattooing in both design and technique is one example of these
connections and I believe there is much more to be learned if we just look closer.
